Dunstan sees Silas as a quick and easy solution to his problems and unjustly seizes his small fortune only thinking of himself and not the effect his actions will have on Marner. After the thievery Silas Marner draws further away from the community believing he can trust no one. Similarly Godfrey concentrates on his personal interests and well-being over Marner's. Feeling envious of Silas Marner's parenthood, Godfrey and his new wife want the opportunity to satisfy their desire as parents. They have no disregard for Marner's love for Eppie nor do they consider the best interests of the child simply because they are of the upper class. Their needs come before anyone else's especially those with lesser social status even if it means harming others along the way. Eliot's use of characters and their interactions with one another effectively illustrates the use of social class separation occurring throughout the novel and relative of the time period. .

             Silas Marner is a perfect symbol of the working class and portrays the conditions and separation from society those of the lower classes endured during the eighteenth century. The picture that emerges [of the lower classes] is of men and women who are materially very poor by contemporary standards, who are uncomplaining in their poverty, who lead lives of hard work but rarely expect to find fulfillment from it, and for whom the family, interpersonal relationships, and relationships with God are centrally important. Their intellectual and cultural horizons are strictly limited: very few concern.

             themselves with national events or politics, even with local trade union or labour movements; they are uninterested in material acquisition or achievement as such; they are not socially mobile and barely conscious of class beyond a recognition that the masters constitute a different order of society into which they will never penetrate. Their aspirations are modest to be respected by their fellows, to see their families growing up and making their way in the world, to die without debt and without sin.